Electronic devices with displays such as mobile cellular telephones, personal digital assistants and gaming devices typically have a standby screen. This screen is displayed when the device is switched on i.e. when the device is ‘active’ and while the device is not used for a specific application i.e. while the device is idle. When an application that is being used on the device is exited, the display returns ‘home’ and displays the active standby screen until the application or a different application is started. If the device has a menu system organized as a hierarchical tree, then the standby screen is at the root of the hierarchical tree.
As the standby screen may be displayed on the device frequently, it would be desirable to allow a user to customize the information presented in the standby screen.
At present, the user may be able to select a background for the standby screen. The user may also be able to select graphical information or control items for display in the foreground of the display over the background. A graphical information item is an item that presents information to a user of the device such as a clock. The user can check the information provided by a graphical information item by simply looking at the standby screen. A graphical control item is a selectable item that allows a user to control the device and may be, for example, a ‘shortcut’ to an application.
Currently, for mobile cellular telephones, different platforms offer a number of standard standby screens or different screen layout patterns for the user. A user can view the predefined standby screens and select the one that he/she likes but it is not possible to simply edit a chosen standard layout. Typically customizing the standby screen requires knowledge about the format of standby screen layout files and a text editor for a high-end cellular radio telephone (a smart phone) to be able to alter a standby screen by manually editing the standby screen layout file. However, this process requires the user to have some expertise in programming and may also require the downloading of a text editor to the smart phone.